The problem with a book that’s one long sentence is that there’s never a good stopping point; I enjoyed this innovative story: Solar Bones by Mike McCormack

A funny tale in the Highlands: To Be Continued by James Robertson

In each of these books, ghosts of the past – literal ghosts from Missisippi’s Jim Crowe era prison camps – play a part: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesamyn Ward deserves every award it gets, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around the ending of Hari Kunzru’s White Tears, where cultural appropriation turns to horror

One of my favorite novels of the year – beautiful prose, lively characters, a great ending: Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

On Cats by Charles Bukowski was pure delight

The title is more of a hook than a representation; this is a searing search for faith and a rumination on God and love: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

In Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor the changing seasons are as much a character as any human

Learned lots about India and Pakistan and enjoyed it most of the time: Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

This is the year I learned I loved frontier stories; these two books may be amongst my favorite novels: My Antonia by Willa Cather and Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

My awe and enjoyment of Jane Gardam lives on: Bilgewater

Nobody writes South Florida like Carl Hiaasen: Razor Girl lived up to every expectation I had

The title should be a bad motivational poster, but Elizabeth Strout makes is true and beautiful: Anything is Possible

Still thinking about this collection of short stories; it’s The Moaning Bench that I can’t let go of: Five-Carat Soul by James McBride

And finally: River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey (YA alt history where hippos live in the Mississippi), The Power by Naomi Alderman (wow / oy / yikes), The Revolution of the Moon by Andrea Camilleri (Sicilian historical fiction), Glass Houses by Louise Penny (these characters have become friends), and The Days of Abondonment by Elena Ferrante (harrowing, harsh, had to keep reading – the usual Ferrante).

So have you of late considered your thumbs?Not eyes, not hair, not smile…but thumbs?Elder poets of verse long agoMay have found divinity in the big right toe,

But, have you taken seriously your thumbs?

“Th” … rare dipthong found in only few languages.“Umb”…steady chant of pause or unknowing for ages.Put them together and you may have rare unknowingWith or without any rare confusion showing.

Or, do our thumbs know in a rare way?

Do you grasp your pen with your pinky?

Approve the evening meal with a forefinger up?

Press the space bar with a trusty knuckle?

Hold fast with a ring finger the securing of a buckle?

Earthly agents only of the common are they, you say?

Would you wipe tears from a lover’s cheek with a palm instead?Or gnaw on your carpal bones in moments of dread?Do you rub the hand of a patient with your wrist for comfort?Or use your nails to anoint with oil those painfully encumbered?

Blessed and humble anchors of things ordinary and graspable.Honorable rooks of our moves toward the ungraspable.